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Hollinger Corp. 
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LC 3732 
.C2 G4 
Copy 1 



Educating Parents — 

A California Problem 



By Mrs. Frank A. Gibson 

Member of Stale Immigration and Housing Commission 



TO SOLVE the new problems that con- 
front us it is necessary to make some 
sharp readjustments in our educa- 
tional methods. The cut and dried sys- 
tems of a few decades ago are discarding 
themselves and an elastic system, to fit the 
present needs, is evolving. 

Already the public schools are meeting 
the elemental bread and butter question 
with liberal vocational courses — boys are 
taught trades and girls are learning to be 
practical home-makers and to care for chil- 
dren scientifically as well as to con their 
books. By full recognition of this work a 
new dignity is given to labor. 

The University takes itself to the people. 
The earning power of land is augmented 
by the expert aid of trained men who go to 
the farm itself. Boys and girls and men 
and women are being taught how to make 
country life worth living while they are 
making a living. 

The farm advisor in his regular rounds 
takes account, not only of agricultural, but 
of community needs and puts his wits to 
work to unify his district on a social pro- 
gram. 

In the cities the health department sends 
out a fine band of nurses who minister to 
the sick and spread an educational propa- 
ganda of sanitation, home nursing and gen- 
eral care of children. As a part of this 
work we find, in more enlightened cities, 
milk stations and baby welfare instruction. 
There is even a hint that the wonderful 
New Zealand plan of visiting rural nurses 
is in contemplation by the State Nurses' 
Association. 

These are only a few of the ways in 
which education is being democratized — 



is being put at the service of the people, 
not as a luxury, but as the most practical 
and useful tool that can be given to them 
for their own protection. 

The complexity of our population brings 
us face to face with questions which we 
must answer now if we would save our- 
selves a more difficult situation in the years 
that are to come. 

Swiftly it is being borne in upon us that 
the family is a unit and that it should be 
preserved in its entirety. There has been 
a smug philosophy that children were the 
only people worth educating—we have all 
said it — that they were the salvation of the 
world and that parents did not count in 
the great educational game. Gradually the 
fallacy and danger of this philosophy has 
been proven. Now we see that by over- 
accentuation of the importance of children 
we have put them in command of situations 
to the detriment of the children themselves. 
Particularly is this true of the foreign child. 
"Americanized" by the public school. 

JY| ORE RAPIDLY than is generally real- 
■J-"* ized, our California communities are 
taking on foreign quarters; in the larger 
centers there are already well defined for- 
eign districts. In these districts we find 
not only the familiar Oriental and Mexican 
quarters, but Ghettos, Little Italy's, Lesser 
Russia's, Armenia's and Portgual's — bands 
of people who are in our country but not 
of it. To the troops of children to be found 
here the teacher of our schools give them- 
selves with enthusiasm — where sickness is, 
there are ministering angels in uniform, 
carrying every comfort that training and 
devotion can suggest. 



This is SENATE BILL No. 427 

introduced by Senator Thompson, and referred to the 

Committee on Education 



AN ACT 

The people of the State of California 
do enact as follows: 

Section 1. A new section is hereby 
added to the Political Code to be 
numbered section sixteen hundred 
seventeen b, and to read as follows: 

1617b. The officers of any school 
district, town or city, may employ 
teachers to be known as "home 
teachers," not exceeding one such 
home teacher for every five hundred 
units of average daily attendance in 
the common schools of said district as 
shown by the report of the county 
superintendent of schools for the next 
preceding school year. It shall be the 
duty of the home teachers to work in 
the homes of the pupils, instructing 
children and adults in matters relat- 
ing to school attendance and prepara- 
tion therefor; also in sanitation, in 
the English language, in household 
duties such as purchase, preparation 
and use of food and of clothing and 
in the fundamental principles of the 
American system of government and 
the rights and duties of citizenship. 
The qualifications of such teachers 
shall be a regular elementary or sec- 
ondary certificate to teach in the 
schools of California and special fit- 
ness to perform the duties of a home 
teacher; provided, that the salaries of 
such teachers shall be paid from the 
city or district special school funds. 



Endorsed by The Women's Legis- 
lative Council, The State Board of 
Education, The State Commission of 
Immigration and Housing. 



Write to your Representatives in the Legislature and urge that 

it be passed. Do it now! ! 

*>• Qt q; 
PH 1 49 5 



The public schools are striving to make 
themselves neighborhood centers and the 
splendid teachers are adding an hour or 
two of home visiting to a hard day's work, 
adjusting difficulties and trying to uphold 
parental discipline — to keep the mothers 
in step with their children — to unify the 
family. 

There are no local figures to be had but 
in 1910 ninety per cent of the 2600 com- 
plaints of delinquent children made to the 
Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago 
related to immigrant children and in Pitts- 
burgh the percentage was 66 2-3 — reason 
"the mother has lost control of her family." 
This large percentage of delinquency does 
not prove that the children of immigrants 
are bad children, but it is a severe indict- 
ment of the system under which we are 
meeting our responsibilities — a system in 
which we are readier to punish than to ed- 
ucate — quicker to spend money for courts 
than for schools. 

Myra Kelly aptly writes that "the only 
way the immigrant learns our laws is by 
breaking them" — then he finds out. We 
ourselves are learning that we have broken 
a family law when we have ignored all but 
the children of the immigrant; that the clev- 
er boy or girl who is the hope of the teach- 
er may be the despair of his own family be- 
cause of his superiority and contempt of 
parental authority; that a knowledge of our 
speech and our ways often puts the chil- 
dren in command of a father and mother 
helpless to enforce necessary discipline. "If 
the policeman asks about some escapade 
or the truant officer gives warning, it is the 
scamp himself who must interpret between 
the parent and officer." This reversal of 
relations proceeds rapidly, the mother par- 
ticularly shrinks from her almost impos- 
sible duty and the child grows ashamed of 
his old-country parents — "back numbers" 
he calls them. Without training for life 
the child goes his independent way — what 
can be the result? 

So long as the United States admits these 
aliens to our shores, so long as real estate 
men and great labor enterprises lure them 
with promises, just so long must the coun- 
try protect itself by meeting the needs of 
these people — not only the need of food and 
of clothes, but the need of the preservation 
of the family. These families are with us 
and make up a definite part of our civiilza- 
tion — whether that part shall be valuable 
or a menace to the body politic, rests with 
us. 

The immigrant mother is the most neg- 
lected individual in our state — set aside by 
shyness and her strange language. Busy 
with her home and her struggle to make 
ends meet, she has little time for social in- 



tercourse. Frightened by well meaning 
people who strive to offer her a religion 
other than the one that is her hope for sal- 
vation, she is hard for strangers to ap- 
proach. Proud, and very much afraid, of 
her wonderful children, she soon meekly 
accepts a secondary place in her household 
and takes the Juvenile Court as a dispen- 
sation of Providence and a regular accom- 
paniament to education. 

In order to meet this need social settle- 
ments have striven, private agencies have 
done what they could, but the great state 
has done nothing. 

In New York the North American Civic 
League for Immigrants put out a privately 
financed system of home visitors which 
promised much and last year seemed quite 
adequate to me. This system was to send 
out teachers, half nurses and half domestic 
science teachers to win their way into 
homes and to teach whatever should be 
necessary. This had, as far as it went, fine 
effect, but its field was limited as all private 
fields must be. 

T AST SUMMER a short experiment was 
*— j tried in two California schools. Be- 
cause public money could be spent only 
for children between the ages of 6 and 21, 
it was volunteer work added to the sum- 
mer schools. The time was short, and the 
weather was hot but enthusiastic effort 
pointed a practical solution to the problem 
of home education. Both the schools were 
those known as neighborhood schools, 
planned to answer every need of the neigh- 
borhood. They had day nurseries where 
the little mothers could bring the babies 
to stay while the real mothers were at work 
earning the daily bread, penny kitchens 
provided to give a wholesome hot noon 
meal, vocational training along many lines, 
cooking schools, laundries and sewing 
rooms where adults were welcomed, a baby 
welfare station where trained women gave 
careful instruction to mothers. 

Preparatory to the experiment there was 
a general gathering at the school-house of 
all the social agencies of the neighborhood. 
The chief city nurse and the district nurse, 
the humane officer and other officials talked 
over plans and promised hearty co-opera- 
tion. The churches and the clubs were all 
visited, the idea submitted and co-opera- 
tion asked. Some of the pastors announced 
from their pulpits the coming visits of the 
teachers and urged their people to receive 
them as real friends. In one school each 
teacher tried to make one home visit each 
day; in the other, a man and two women 
made special effort to cover as much of the 
neighborhood as possible. It was just a 
general round of visits to find out the needs 



LIBRARY OF r.:ONr.SRI:'.S£ 



of the neighborhood and to offer friendly 
service — to invite mothers to the baby sta- 
tion or to a concert. 

The result of the six weeks' work was al- 
most unbelievable — families were connected 
with the city nurses, bad housing was re- 
ported to the housing commission, the hu- 
mane officer was called where she was 
needed, the charities were summoned to 
their work, cases of exploitation were re- 
ferred to the proper authorities, employ- 
ment was found, difficulties were adjusted 
and in a quiet business-like manner the 
teachers found how they could best serve 
the mothers — they found what the people 
wanted and what they needed. Through 
the special work of the man teacher 250 
men were drawn into the evening school 
where they are now learning English and 
citizenship. 

By this experiment it was found that the 
teacher is warmly welcome and that her ac- 
quaintance with the home gives her an add- 
ed hold upon the children, that the knowl- 
edge that "teacher" thinks mother is worth 
consulting adds a new dignity to parental 
authority. This in itself is full justification 
for this departure in education. For the 
mother this friendly contact means a new 
hold and hope in life, new courage and am- 
bition for the future. 

The great advantage of a home teacher 
from the public school over any private 
venture is this — she is known in her neigh- 
borhood, has an official position, and knows 
her case ten months in the year. She can 
apply to the trained corps for special as- 
sistance, she can connect her mothers with 
model kitchen or clubs, with the nursery 
or the trade school; in fact, if she is the 
skilful, kindly investigator, she will be able 
to prescribe according to the need of the 
home — and to fill her prescription. 



i ii 



■ hi 



The 



019 654 585 2 

home teacher bill _„ 



w~»w« \, IUC 



legislature is very short and very simple in 
its provision — it is permissive and not man- 
datory. The home teacher will only be 
used where boards of education decide that 
a teacher in the home will be more use- 
ful than another one in the school. The du- 
ties will include counciling with parents 
and children on questions of family and 
school interest; impressing upon parents 
the importance of a common school educa- 
tion and helping devise ways and means; 
showing children their personal re- 
sponsibility to the family; making a home 
and school matter of many things that now 
go to the courts; indicating proper recre- 
ation; teaching English and the simple laws 
that are necessary to life in cities; encour- 
aging and training for citizenship. The 
home teacher will occupy in the home much 
the same position that the farm advisor 
does on the farm and the visits will be even 
more eagerly anticipated. ^Altogether a 
simple, practical plan, so natural and home- 
ly in its workings as to impress some peo- 
ple with its being revolutionary and Uto- 
pian. 

If even the present immigrant population 
of California is to be assimilated, the state 
must make the immigrant mother its con- 
cern. Neither hiding our heads in the sand 
nor charity will settle this family question, 
nor will Juvenile Courts. It cannot longer 
be ignored nor pushed aside for a more con- 
venient time. These women need educa- 
tion for self protection and women who 
are more fortunate than they, ask it for 
them. The great Federation of Women's 
Clubs of California asks the state to put 
this educational law upon its statutes, not 
only for the sake of the immigrant moth- 
ers but for the protection of the state. 




Reprinted from the California Outlook 
of February 6, 1915 



Hollinger Corp. 
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